Some Place Unreachable
by Broken Storms
Summary: The war is over and Hermione is among the last of Dumbledore's -Broken- Army. Gifted by Voldemort to Lucius Malfoy as a prize for his service, she finds herself a slave in Malfoy Manor. But as the weeks go on, she sees only glimpses of the master of the house. And with every encounter, she begins to realize that Lucius is just as much a slave as she is.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello. This is going to be a rather serious story. Most chapters will be rated T, but some may be M- I will put a chapter rating at the top of each chapter. This is a Lumione fic. If you do not like that, then please remove yourself. That's all I'm going to be saying on the matter. All troll-y and flame-y reviews will be ignored unless you actually state something intelligent. Thanks.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or settings in this story. Merely the plot.**

 **Enjoy and please review and let me know what you think. Thanks so much for reading.**

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Chapter One: Mirror in the Manor

Hermione Granger stared at her distorted reflection in the warped, narrow mirror that hung in the hall of the guest wing on the third floor. She barely recognized herself anymore. Gaunt faced and too-pale skin, black-blue rings of misery beneath her eyes, unruly hair unrulier than ever. She'd been here for two weeks now, two long and empty weeks. A week before those weeks, she'd lain there crying in the rain on the ground just outside of Hogwarts as the heel of a boot pressed her head into the mud and an unfortunately familiar voice happily chanted 'Mudblood' over and over only a few feet above her head. 'Now you're really dirty, aren't you?'

She wasn't there when Harry fell. She'd gone back out to help heal and distribute blood replenishing potions, removing the stoppers with shaking fingers as her heart did flips inside of her and her own wounds bleed profusely, her dirty blood mixing in with the blood of her friends who were dying right in front of her, whose bodies littered the ground like water cups and snack wrappers after a football game. Used up. Discarded. Shells, husks, emptied vessels. In the moment that the dark mark tore open the sky and green smoke rained down upon her with a terrible roar, it had all felt so wasteful. All of it had been for nothing. She had passed out with the knowledge of that ringing in her ears, with her mind screaming out in horrifying realization that everyone she loved was dead and it was all over.

Somewhere the voice of a dead man was mocking her: 'The Insufferable Know-It-All doesn't know it all, now does she?'

When she woke up it had been raining, pouring as if the clouds had fallen too, their bellies sliced open and bleeding all over the battlefield just as her friends had. Their bodies were still there, cold and unmoving. Even with the frenzy of raindrops it was stomach-churningly still. If you could not have seen the blood in the dirt and grass, staining their cloaks and robes and shirts and skirts, drying in their hair and against their cheeks, or their eyes locked in a staring contest with the grim reaper- If you looked over the fields from just the right angle, you might have thought that all these people had just laid down in the field for an afternoon snooze and that now they were caught in the rain unaware. But Hermione could not find that sacred angle from which to look upon them, because for her it no longer existed. She was there when the people laid down for their final rest, she'd lain down with them. She hadn't meant to wake up again… Not alone, not like this.

If she was dead like she had wanted to be, then Heaven was a cruel illusion, another one of Voldemort's curses. After waking up she'd tried to run for the forest, get lost in there somewhere, hoping to Merlin that maybe one of her friends had survived, that someone who wasn't an enemy would be in there. She never even made it to the treeline. Shouts met her ears from the moment she bolted from where she'd been kneeling after waking up. Bolts of light of varying colors flew past her as she ran down the hills in a panic. Her wand was nowhere on her person, probably out there in the field somewhere… Broken by now, she was sure. A spell struck her in the back and down she'd sailed, face first into the mud as she tripped from the impact. Her lip split against a rock, her teeth numb, her nose throbbing. And as panting breaths and shrill laughter descended on her through the shield of pouring rain, as the heel of the boot held her face in the dirt, she sobbed. The horrid sounds produced from her own body were all she'd had power over in that awful moment of helplessness and despair.

She had cried herself sick, vomiting up blood and sick all over her own face and into her hair. Above her Bellatrix still taunted, laughing harder than ever. Through the rain and the tears and blood, Hermione could see that a crowd of Death Eaters had gathered about them. The stood there unshifting, unmoving, like a black wall that erected itself into the landscape on its own through the power it gained by feeding off of her fear and hatred. The figures only moved for the grandest one of them all, the worst of the worst. The red-eyed, flat nosed, corpse-skinned lord of the damned.

He walked through the crowd and up to her with confidence and grace that made her ill again. If she'd had anything left in her, she would've puked it up again. She grew more and more frenzied as he drew closer. Here he was, the creature that had murdered her best friends and countless others, that tore Harry off the Marauders Map forever. She was sure she was about to join him, that she and her muddy blood were about to be erased off of his perfect, twisted nightmare of a kingdom, too.

Her sobs and cries grew to shrill unbridled screams as he knelt beside her and ran a disgusting, bony hand over her blood, puke, and rain drenched hair. His smile was absolutely bone grinding. He was saying something to her, and the words reverberated through her head in a way she couldn't place, but she wasn't hearing him. She refused to listen to the voice of the thing that ruined her life and destroyed her home, that killed everyone she'd ever cared about. She watched his lips move over jagged, rotting teeth, watched as his red eyes twinkled in delight at her despair… And then she saw nothing, and she embraced the idea that she might be dead. For this world and the awful people who remained to inhabit it, they were something she was sure she could never survive. Not anymore.

But she wasn't dead, no matter how much she wanted to be. She hadn't been granted that mercy. The next time her eyes had opened, she found herself suspended from the ceiling of the remains of the Great Hall by magical ropes that she could feel digging into her wrists even though she couldn't see them. To her left and right hung many others. They too were as helpless as lambs being dangled over the heads of starving wolves who roamed just below. She could see them, too, those black-clothed wolves. At the head of the room, where Dumbledore had once stood, was their cunning alpha- Sporting a mad man's grin and all.

This was how she learned that Luna, Neville, Ginny, George, and Professor McGonagall were still alive. Of her those hanging around her, they were the only names she truly cared about when they were called. Most of the others were only people she'd met once, had heard about, or had passed in the hall. She took their names with both happiness and despair. Happiness because they were alive… And despair because after all of this pain and suffering, after surviving the horrors of war- They were nothing but prizes for the enemy.

Luna was given to Dolohov.

George to the Carrows.

Like some sick joke Neville was handed over to Bellatrix.

McGonagall to Yaxley.

And, to her surprise, Ginny was given to Snape. Snape who was supposed to be dead. Snape who had supposedly been on their side all along. Snape who stood there as a sobbing Ginny was lowered to the floor before him.

Hermione, too, began to cry as she learned of her fate. Gifted to none other than Lucius Malfoy.

She remembered, through the tears, the sight of him as she was lowered from the ceiling, wrists drawn above her head. She was dangled right in his face yet he wouldn't look her in the eye. His gaze was locked elsewhere, somewhere far from the Great Hall, some place unreachable. She wished she was there.

Anywhere but here.

Now she stood in the third floor hall of Malfoy Manor, cleaning for guests that would never come.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello again. I bring you chapter two today. Thank you all so much for your reviews and favorites and follows, I'm so happy with the positive feedback so far. I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as the last, though I suppose that it could be considered a bit boring. Also, I'm sorry if you see any mistakes. I edited it a little but I wrote quite a bit of it at 5 in the morning the other night :P**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the settings in this fan fiction, I only write the plot.**

 **-Replies:**

 **Pixiefang15002: Thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest of the story :)**

 **Lostwithoutablogger: Yes I'm not very much a fan of heavily abusive fics, at least not physically- mind games and whatnot can be interesting if well written- as I find that a lot of people either go overboard or they bring up experiences in my own life that I don't want to recall. Sadly, I've found that a lot of the really well written fics for this pairing in particular circulate around abuse. I'm not saying that all Lumione stories should be happy, fluffy valleys of sunshine in the slightest, just that I wish there were more melancholic fics or stories that are centered around the psychological damage of their experiences- both past and present- that didn't revolve around Hermione being beaten by Lucius nearly to death every other chapter. My story is, by no means, a happy or cheerful story. It's going to be sad and angsty, and mostly stay that way. There will certainly be some physical violence going on, but that's not what the fic will be centered around at all.**

 **Team Wingless: Thanks :) I'm glad you like it so far and that I haven't made too many mistakes. It's funny that you mentioned the paragraph thing because I have been told before that my paragraphs were too short, so I purposefully tried to make them longer to hopefully improve the flow haha. I guess it backfired :P Hopefully I did better with chapter two, let me know!**

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Chapter Two: Dungeons and Dawn

The nights were the worst. When she wasn't staring up into darkness from her cot, she was running from Death Eaters through the realm of nightmares. It was always in a forest, not the Forbidden Forest, not one she recognized at all. For the first couple of nights she'd thought back to the days when she, Harry, and Ron had been hunting for the horcruxes. She thought back to the Forest of Dean, to the Sword of Gryffindor, to the snatchers, to Malfoy Manor and Bellatrix… To her arm. But this forest wasn't the Forest of Dean, either. It was somewhere entirely new and entirely terrible.

Not one inch of the forest was anything but uninviting and cold. Brittle trees with spindly branches clawing at an overcast sky, an ocean of grey above her head. There was no path ahead of her, only thick mist and uncertainty. Bramble and thorns tore up her legs and thick roots often tripped her, she'd land with her hands stretched forward to break her fall, only to have her arms and face cut by the thorns, her palms bloody from the rocks and sticks on the forest floor. Behind her, Bellatrix's mad laughter filled the air, growing ever closer with every moment that she slipped or tripped or had to stop and catch her breath.

She'd run until her muscles were like jelly and the sky would open up and fill with rain. Then the forest would melt away like chalk on cement and she'd be back in the hills outside of Hogwarts as the Death Eaters surrounded her. Screaming, she'd wake up in her cell in the manor's dungeon, and one nightmare would melt right into the other, the false one into the real one.

Night after night. Hour after hour. Second after Second- She lived and breathed and slept a nightmare.

So she stopped sleeping. If she could just remove at least _one_ version of Hell from the series, perhaps she could hold insanity at bay for a little longer.

But wasn't it all pointless? In the end it was only one factor. There were still dozens upon dozens of other tortures in her life at any given moment. The war was over and Voldemort ruled all, her life consisted of lying awake on a cot in a dungeon and cleaning house for her enemies, most of her friends were dead and gone and those who weren't were slaves like her. And Hermione was fairly certain that she had it good compared to some of the others. Poor Luna all alone with a monster like Dolohov… Neville with Bellatrix.

She supposed this was where her desperate mind gathered the will to go on. In all the bad, she still had it 'good' in a sense. She could be dead but she wasn't. Lucius, or even Draco, could have killed her by now if they so desired. She could be forced to do things much worse than cleaning dusty, haunted rooms full of ridiculing Malfoy portraits and the occasional spiteful ghost. And at the very least, her _master_ kept to himself, left her alone. In fact she hadn't seen either of the Malfoy men even once since she'd come here, and as for the lady of the house…

Well, now her master was a widower and his son had no mother. And Death Eaters or not, she pitied anyone who lost a parent. After all, she would never see her own again and they would never even know that they had a daughter in the first place. She really was entirely alone here. The ghosts and the house elves didn't count as company. Not when the former continuously tormented her and the latter wouldn't say more than two words to her.

The dripping sound in the corner made her all the more lonely as the it harshly echoed off of the stone walls every fourteen seconds exactly. She'd counted, for what else was there to do besides relive the same memories over and over, think the same thoughts a thousand times through. Besides, she needed something to keep her from drifting off.

There were no windows, but there were windows up the stairs from the dungeons. She watched the metal gate and the stairs that came after it, waiting for dawn to filter down like a shaft of silver promise. A prize for warding off another night of sleep.

But there was no light yet.

She counted to one hundred and still no light.

Two hundred and three… Still nothing but impenetrable darkness so thick that she didn't even have something to look at, allow her eyes to study until she had every centimeter of it memorized, every detail as familiar as her own reflection.

The nothingness continued for another two hundred. She thought about humming but decided against it. It would only bring the rats she'd seen the other morning to stir further, though she was sure that they were already scurrying around the cold house. This big, empty house. Most days so far, it had seemed as though there was never anyone in it but herself- that is, when the ghosts got tired of pestering her and left for who knew where.

A stray thought weaseled it's way into her brain and her mind, ever so desperate for something to focus on, latched onto it like a leech to a child's foot as she waded in a pond in the heat of summer. She fed from that thought as if she were a vampire who drank from stimulation and entertainment, interruption and disturbances in this bleak and hollow place.

Wouldn't this place have made the most marvelous setting for a game of hide-and-go-seek as a child?

For a moment she couldn't help but to envy Draco and his free reign of a house like this one. Take away from the torture and the dungeons and the darkness that forever permeated the house and it was like something out of a fairytale. How she wished that everything could be simple for just a little while- That there was no war, no one was dead, she wasn't a slave, this wasn't the house that she was tortured within- so she could wander the halls and get lost.

Forget.

But she could never forget. It would dishonor everything that Harry and everyone else stood for if she just forgot and went on as if it all never happened, as if this poor excuse of an existence was her entire life up until now. But even she if wanted to, she could never forget. Those memories were why she hadn't slept in two days, why she stared into blackness for hours and waited for the first light of dawn and the screech of the gate at the bottom of the stairs. They would always be there to haunt her, even when the ghosts didn't, lurking just beneath her skin, behind her eyes, in her head…

She counted to seven hundred, losing herself in the numbers, whispering them into the empty space around her. She turned onto her side to face the stairs and noticed, finally, the silvery light of morning being cast upon the stone walls just outside the gate. Soon enough the dungeon would be filled with enough light that she would be able to see her surroundings once more. Another night, victorious.

In the meantime she continued to count, but found her thoughts straying elsewhere as the light pooled on the stone floor, stretching with every second as if someone had left the bath running and water was slinking its way across the house. The light was like a cautious flood that grew bolder with each passing minute. Lying here like this, waiting for the dawn, reminded Hermione of the days she'd spent as a muggle child, before Hogwarts and Harry and Ron and Voldemort, where she'd stare at the glow in the dark stars on her bedroom ceiling just before dawn on the weekends, waiting for her parents to wake up. The moment she heard their door open and the bathroom door close, she'd dart from her bed to get dressed.

As soon as she had enough light, she did the same thing as then. She slipped out of the scratchy nightgown the house elves had brought for her on her first night here and laid it out on the cot. At the end of the bed were her day clothes, black leggings and shirt, a grey robe to go over them. Wool socks and white underthings. Plain black shoes. All of it was of rough material and fairly uncomfortable, but at least the clothes all fit. They never could keep out the cold of the ghosts, though, but she supposed that little could.

She didn't know why she was allowed this small mercy, but they'd given her a comb. Her hair was still damp from washing in the small basin beside the cot and tossing and turning all night had swirled it into one massive tangle. At least she'd have something to do while she waited for the elves. Her fingers shook as she brought the comb through her curls and waves. Only now, sitting up in the dawn, did she realize how tired she was. Two days of scrubbing floors and wiping down furniture and dusting old relics and artifacts had left her drained. With no sleep added to the list, she could do little more than sit and stare into nothingness, eyes watering against the will to close. But close them she could not. She couldn't let herself. Though her muscles ached and her hands shook against any movement, she would only sleep when her body forced her to, when she was on the brink. She could do it, she'd managed sleepless nights before, and in situations much more frantic than this. She hated to think that she'd grown to somewhat accept this as her life in the past two weeks, but some part of her had. Perhaps it was because she'd always been an adaptable girl, no matter the trial or change she'd always been able to withstand whatever the winds of change blew her way.

Doubt wove its malicious fingers through her hair and into her head. Sure she'd always been adaptable but could she _really_ adapt to this? And in the end, when it all came crashing down, the inevitability of death would be waiting. No matter what, whether she survived and grew old in this place or was murdered by the people within it, she was still going to die. The only person who still waited for her here, or out beyond the manor walls, was the Reaper.

The gate opened with a sharp squeal, like the wail of some gravely wounded creature, and the pattering footsteps of the house elf replaced the sound of the dripping in the corner. He shuffled over to her cage-like cell and put a hand around one of the bars. The door to the cell popped open and Hermione rose, wobbly legs carrying her out of the enclosure and to the stairs. Today, she leaned heavily on the rail. At the top of the stairs, the house elf appeared with a pop and handed her a glass of water and a brittle piece of toast. She nibbled at it until the gnawing in her stomach subsided a bit but couldn't bring herself to finish the entire thing. If she did, nausea would set in for whatever reason, and so she only ate about half before handing it back to the house elf and draining the glass of water.

Without a word, the house elf took the glass and like usual, disapparated with a pop. The same as every morning. And then, like always, she was alone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello there. Chapter three here. You guys are so great. Already over 300 views on this story and we're only a couple of chapters in. Finally an encounter in this chapter :) Sorry I don't have much to say, I'm really tired.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and settings in this story, merely the plot.**

 **Replies:**

 **-Lostwithoutablogger: Thanks so much, dear. Enjoy chapter three!**

 **-Luckywitch13: I'm really glad you like the plot so far, I hope you like it in the future as well. Though beware, there will be some twists and turns, friend.**

 **Enjoy, you guys. Let me know what you think :)**

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Chapter Three: Silver and Gold

It was as she scrubbed down the last of the guest rooms that evening that Hermione realized she had run out of cleaner. She could only scrounge up a few suds from the sponge as she dragged it along the floor and now it only left streaks against the black-stained wood. She was running out of options now. She'd tried the sinks in one of the attached bathrooms, but found that none of them ran. And, try as she might, she could get no house elves to come when she called for help.

She was sitting down on the bed now, relishing in the small rest her dilemma brought her. One of the more ragged- as ragged as a Malfoy ancestor could possibly be, she supposed- ghosts floated past the open door and sneered at her as if he'd known this would happen. She slumped forward a bit, yawning, elbows propped up against her knees, and rested her head on hands as she thought for a solution. She supposed she _could_ just leave the room and say that it was done, after all she'd cleaned the same rooms for weeks and they'd been spotless to begin with. But the paranoia in her wondered if perhaps Malfoy or one of the other Death Eaters were just waiting for her to slip up, had house elves watching for any mistake they could exploit into the excuse for punishment.

Finally she stood, knowing what needed to be done, and nervously made her way to the door. Gods how she hated the lack of confidence in herself these days. All the spark of the 'Brightest Witch of Her Age' was gone, replaced by sorrow and fear, despair and crushing loneliness. Her heart gave a throb at the thought of her friends, cold in the ground somewhere that she'd never know the location of. She swallowed the rising lump in her throat and as she looked down at her hands she half expected, so absorbed was she by the memories of the Final Battle, to see blood staining her fingers, grass beneath her feet as she sat on her knees, kneeling beside the dying forms of her friends and allies, people who'd become family to her. People she loved.

But there was no blood, just too-pale skin and nails gone ragged from cleaning. She stood upon black wood floors in a room so dark she couldn't think of a single sane person who'd actually want to sleep here.

Closing her eyes and ignoring the leering ghost from earlier in the hall, she stepped out into the corridor and set out to hunt down a house elf and some cleaner. It was growing late now, the sun almost entirely set. Her stomach gave a small groan as she was never given lunch and her dinner- if it could really be called a dinner- was usually served around this time. She tried to stay quiet and steady on her feet, hopefully avoiding anyone else who might be out wandering the manor's halls, and made her way to the stairs that lead to the second floor. She followed the route the route she'd become accustomed to after a few days of living here. Down the stairs, take a left, down the next set of stairs and take the long hall to the right, watching for the steps down to the dungeons.

She walked this path every morning and evening, yet never had she felt so uneasy as she did now. The walls felt as though they were closing in around her, the dark paint and wallpaper boxing her in, suffocating her with every step like the fun houses at carnivals with warped mirrors and rooms that got smaller and smaller the further you ventured into them until you felt like screaming from claustrophobia. She felt very much like the frightened, bewildered, yet curious child that she had been when she and her family had gone to the carnival in that moment.

Only a few more yards from the stairs… She let out a breath of relief that caught in her throat when she saw a light on in the hall that branched off to the left before the stairs. She'd never gone down that hall before and had only seen glimpses of it as she passed. One wall, she noticed as she peered down it now, was entirely of floor to ceiling windows. The scene outside was of a darkening, gray sky, overcast clouds that shrouded the world in an eternal Winter-light. The other side was a long row of doors, all closed except for the one with the warm glow of candlelight pouring out of it and into the hall.

She'd never heard anyone in that hall before, and had never noticed anyone go down it or emerge from it, although she did spend most of the day within the rooms of the guest wing themselves. And she _was_ up here later than usual tonight… Perhaps the elves did work in there after she went back down to the dungeons.

Ready to burst with uncertainty, she stood there, staring at the door for a few moments as shadows began to play in the light being cast upon the hallway floor. It was one shadow, to be particular, and though shadows stretched, it was far too large and proportional to the shadow of a house elf. As silently as she could manage in her fear-hyped state, she began to back away, ready to bolt for the stairs or back into the guest wing. As long as she was out of sight. Surely it could only be one of two people, and neither of them did she want to face.

The shadow moved closer, silently, slinking along like a panther or perhaps a snake. How very Slytherin. It stood before the door now, tall, obscuring almost all of candles' warm glow. At this moment Hermione opted to abandon all attempts at stealth and was about to turn back toward her originally intended route when the body attached to the shadow emerged from the room.

Lucius stood in the hall, staring out into the nearly-black sky. The stark silver of the outside world and the warm gold of the candlelight played on each part of him, darkening in the middle, splitting him in two. She was transfixed by both fear and curiosity, now far more intense than it had been when she'd first noticed the open door. She could not turn away, afraid that if she moved he might notice her like the lurking, predatory figure that he was, but also caught up in his current state of being.

His hair was loose, untied like it had been the last few times she'd seen him, but far longer than she remembered. It hung nearly to the middle of his back now, limp and white-gold and beautiful in that weird way, like models with exaggerated facial features that were too strange to be considered enviable because only particular woman could pull off eyes so big or a nose so small, or cheekbones so outrageous, too dangerous to be something to yearn for, but still something people openly gawked at or stared at in awe, as if trying to figure out the formula for such a look.

He stood as though he were wilting, an evergreen lost in the throes of a harsh winter, barely hanging on by a thread. Not openly slouching, but almost as if parts of himself were too heavy for other parts of himself to support, falling out of sorts, like removing the beam that supported the ceiling in someone's living room. His body seemed to dance precariously on the razor-thin line between illness and normalcy. Even physically he existed in the gray area between black and white, made up of a thousand different shades of silver.

Other factors contributed to the near-shabbiness of his appearance. Stubble lined his jaw, creeping its way over his upper lip and down near to his neck. He wore no robes then, just gray pants and a white shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and the top three buttons undone, he wasn't even wearing socks.

But the emptiness was the most noticeable, overpowering thing. It existed in every part of him, the nothingness that accompanied someone who had _lost_. Lost things, people, direction in his life, the will to live. It was so startlingly, so shockingly un-Lucius Malfoy like. Azkaban and Voldemort had truly stripped him of the varnish, the lacquer, that screamed power and wealth and confidence. Now he stood in the hallway of his own home looking as if he had no idea where the bathroom was.

Hermione shook her head. It was all just too weird, to see Lucius Malfoy barefoot in his hall, robes, wand and cane, and bravado all absent. She had to leave, _now._ _RUN._

But it was too late. The only slight, shake of her head had given her away. All the curiosity that previously held her there handed the reins to Fear. She was shackled to the floor as he turned toward her. She met his eyes like she had all those years ago in Flourish and Blotts, but the conviction they'd held then was gone. Icebound silver had been forcibly melted and weathered away like an aging glacier, and all that was left was ghostly grey. The gaze of the forever haunted. She wondered if her own eyes, when not filled with fear, looked similar to those who could see more than just circles of color.

His voice startled her so badly, though she'd been eventually anticipating it, that she nearly dropped her bucket and sponge. "What are you doing here?"

She blinked and when she looked at him again, a well-fabricated mask of his former self had been carefully plastered into place, posture straightened and eyes like a twin storms, hands clasping themselves behind his back as he looked down his nose at her even though they stood a good twenty feet from each other. It could've fooled her had she not seen the truth of him in their last few meetings. His disheveled post-Azkaban look of desperation and cruelty as she lay screaming on his floor and he ignored her, the glimpses of him during the Final Battle as he ran madly through the castle and the grounds with Narcissa and screamed for Draco, when he wouldn't look at her in the Great Hall, and just then when he'd been watching the clouds and the day as it slipped away.

Even his voice had gone back to its old ways, so condescending that he didn't need to sneer at her for her to know he was doing it internally. But even still, the words had come out hoarse and less clipped than she'd anticipated. As if he were genuinely confused as to her presence.

Was he drunk? Had he forgotten? Indignation flared up within her for the first time in weeks.

He repeated the words and this time with much more conviction. Hermione struggled to find her own voice, having not said more than a word to anyone in weeks. "I… I ran out of soap."

He didn't say anything for a few moments, processing her words, brow furrowed. "Why are you still in the guest wing?"

Feeling more confused than ever, she didn't answer, not sure what she could have said or if anything did say would help at all. Realization seemed to dawn on him, shattering the mask once more. "I never had you moved to a new area of the house."

This time, Hermione nodded and he turned back toward the window. "Don't worry about the soap, just… Leave the bucket and… Go."

Carefully, as though dealing with an unpredictable animal, she lowered the bucket to the floor and stared at him briefly once more before turning to nearly sprint down the stairs. She went to the steps that lead to the dungeons automatically and a house elf popped into view with the usual small tray that contained her dinner.

She ate in a stupor, cleaning her plate before she even realized she'd started to eat. Handing the tray back to the house elf, her stomach churned at having eaten too much too fast and her confusion and confliction over the enigma that was the man in the hall who no longer seemed to be able to handle himself.

This time, as she retreated into the darkness of the dungeons for another night of counting and waiting, she was almost looking forward to it with the flurry of newfound thoughts to go over in her arsenal for the war against sleep.


End file.
